


Cut and Run

by dracoqueen22



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Campaign 2 (Critical Role), Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:40:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21904615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracoqueen22/pseuds/dracoqueen22
Summary: Yasha is theirs, and come hell or high water, Beau’s gonna make sure they don’t leave her behind again.
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett & Yasha
Comments: 6
Kudos: 48





	Cut and Run

**Author's Note:**

> This is a bit of an alternate look of how they could have gotten Yasha back, written before they actually managed her retrieval in canon. :)

They run.

They run, and they run, while the laughter chases them, leaving a blood trail in their wake, but Obann and the Hand too close to risk scribbling a teleportation circle. All they can do is run and hope they are fast enough, hope they don’t have to leave Yasha behind again.

Beau can’t. Won’t. Not again.

She’ll throw Yasha over her shoulders if she has to. She’s taking up the rear, not letting any of her family get left behind.

Ahead, Jester turns into a giant eagle and sweeps Caleb across her back.

“I’ll draw the circle ahead. It’ll be ready by the time you meet us!” Caleb shouts, and then they’re gone in several sharp flaps.

Beau’s lungs squeeze. She’s gasping for breath. Sweat slicks her body. She’s covered in bruises. Her muscles burn.

She manages a burst of speed anyway, leaping over obstacles, urging her exhausted family faster and faster, while her skin crawls, and the laughter seems to get louder and louder.

Ahead of her, Yasha stops. Her eyes are big and wide, her face paler than her skin tone, fear creased in the tear tracks on her cheeks.

“He’ll-- he’ll stop,” she says, hands pulling into fists, dripping blood where she’d torn more than a few fingernails. “If I stop, he’ll stop. Just go.”

“Fuck, no. That ain’t happening,” Beau snaps, and she slams her hands against Yasha’s shoulder, pushing her a step back, away from their pursuers. “You’re ours, and he can fuck right off.”

Yasha’s lower lip trembles. “He’ll kill you.”

“He can try.” Beau pushes Yasha again, forces her another step backward, closer to Fjord and Caduceus and Nott, who’ve all stopped running to watch this like the idiots they are. “We’re not weak.”

_I’m not weak._

_I could have helped._

_Why didn’t you ask?_

_We all would have helped._

Yasha swallows; Beau can see her throat bobbing. Blood drip-drips from her hands and out of the wounds in her torn clothing, and she doesn’t even have a weapon. She’d had to leave Magician’s Judge behind and gods only knows where Skingorger has gone, but it’s okay. They’ll find her something else, something better.

They escaped with the important part. They got away with Yasha.

“Come on!” Nott yells, and she bobs in place, like she’s torn between hurrying to catch up with Caleb, and putting herself between Yasha and the encroaching Hand, because that’s what Nott does.

“You gonna make Nott be your shield?” Beau asks, barely louder than a hiss, hoping Nott can’t hear her. “Because that’s what it’s gonna take. We’re not leaving. So turn around and get to fucking running!”

Yasha’s eyes widen. She reaches up, touches the back of her neck, and then she turns and runs, crashing through the underbrush, her hair flying behind her.

Good.

_Good_.

Beau grins, shark-like, as Nott and Fjord fall into step behind her, urging her with their presence and not their words. Caduceus lingers for a moment, giving Beau a knowing look.

“You run,” he says, as if he’s read her mind, and sometimes, Beau thinks Fjord is right. Sometimes, Caduceus really is just that weird, and he has a sense about people that’s downright unnatural.

Beau scrubs a thumb down her cheek. “You first.”

Caduceus frowns, but he doesn’t argue. He turns, and he runs, crashing noisily through the woods, no longer apologizing to the woods around them. They haven’t the time for it.

Laughter rises up behind Beau, loud enough to make her hair stand on end, her skin to crawl, cold chills dancing up her spine. She’s not going to fight. She’s not that stupid. But she can buy them some time, she thinks.

She empties her pockets. She dumps out every last firework from Hupperdook into a messy pile. Her fingers shake as she pulls out her flint.

_Click. Click._

With the tiniest of crackles, fire bursts to life, catching on the nearest wick. Beau blows on it, like she’s watched Nott do with the campfires, and it eats up the wick, faster and faster. It’ll have to do.

“Suck on this, asshole,” Beau says.

She springs backward, turns and runs, swears she sees motion behind her, but doesn’t dare look. She has to move, to run, pulling on every bit of energy inside her body to force her legs to move faster than is physically possible.

_Pop. Pop. Shriek. Boom!_

Behind her, fireworks light the darkened canopy, fire fizzling toward the sky, through the bushes, catching dead trees aflame and spilling smoke and ash into the air. A howl of outrage splits the night, and Beau would grin, if she had the energy for it.

She runs.

‘ _Please say you’re close_.’ Caleb’s voice floods her mind, desperate and exhausted, and begging. ‘ _You can reply to this message._ ’

“Don’t leave without me,” Beau gasps, and leaps from fallen log to low-hanging branch, swinging through the foliage, the sound of crashing trees rising behind her as the last of the fireworks fizzle and pop.

‘ _Hurry_.’

Beau hurries. She puts on another burst of speed, her lungs burning as if she’s swallowed one of Caleb’s fireballs, her legs heavy and strained, her body sheathed in sweat.

She bursts through a thick copse of some kind of berry bush, tasting tart juice on her lips, staining her face, and nearly collides into Caduceus when she emerges on the other side.

“Go, go,” he says, catching her as she stumbles, spinning her around, pointing her in the direction of a glowing glyph.

“Now!” Caleb shouts, and Beau’s moving without thinking, plunging toward the transportation circle, casting around wildly.

Yasha. where’s Yasha? Is she going through the circle? Where is she--

There. Fjord’s pushing her through, one hand firmly around her upper arm, his still weird posh accent muttering words caught by the spell. Beau sags with relief, like a puppet who’s lost its strings, and it’s Caduceus’ hand on the back of her coat that drags her through the teleportation circle, just as the Laughing Hand bursts out of the same berry bush she’d destroyed.

And then the world turns upside down and sideways. Beau’s falling through nothing, her stomach twisting and turning and tugging, until she lands with a gasp on her feet, which immediately buckle.

“Whoa, whoa. I gotcha. It’s okay,” Caduceus says, and Beau’s gasping for breath, her vision tunneling, trying to crawl forward on hands and knees.

She tries to count -- Caleb, Jester, Nott, Caduceus, Fjord… That’s five. That’s five. Where’s-- Where’s--

“Yasha,” she gasps. “Is Yasha…?”

“I’m here, Beau.”

Strong hands lift her up, and Beau manages a lazy grin, a sloppy one, as she looks into Yasha’s dirt and bloodied face, her mismatched eyes, and sees gratitude written in the tear marks.

“Told ya,” Beau says. “You’re ours.”

And then she passes out. Because what else is she going to do?

Yasha’s back where she belongs. Yasha’s safe. They’re all safe. They _survived_.

So yeah. Beau’s gonna pass the fuck out.

They can figure out the rest later.

***

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is absolutely welcome and appreciated. :)


End file.
